There’s a school of thought that Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry deserves the all-star honour DeMar DeRozan will live out this weekend in New Orleans every bit as much as his teammate.

And few who have paid attention to this team, particularly since the early part of December, would argue that.

But in the minds of those more interested in the fortunes of the Raptors’ team than they are any individual honours, the NBA coaches who opted for DeRozan and decided Lowry wasn’t deserving may have done the Raptors a favour.

DeMar DeRozan will have a full weekend in New Orleans beginning with the team skills competition which he will take part in Saturday night. There is also talk that he will be called on to help out Terrence Ross in the dunk competition, although that will hardly sap his energy stores.

On Sunday DeRozan will take part in his first NBA all-star game, voted there as a reserve by those coaches who have recognized the hard work DeRozan has put in every summer since coming into the league and a workload that has him among the top 10 scorers as the NBA reaches the unofficial halfway point of the season.

Lowry, as mentioned, is every bit as deserving, but at least in the opinion of head coach Dwane Casey who — it should be noted — pushed just as hard to get Lowry into the game as he did DeRozan, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the Raptors.

When the league’s coaches opted to pass over Lowry, they inadvertently may have furthered Toronto’s cause. Lowry has been playing extensive minutes, actually slightly less than DeRozan, but at the gruelling point guard position.

Add into that the manner in which Lowry plays — he doesn’t hesitate to live in the paint among the giants stealing rebounds and bumping with the much bigger men on the court or simply going at them and enticing contact to get to the free throw line, and it’s not hard to imagine Lowry getting a little more banged over the course of a season than DeRozan.

On Wednesday night after the Raptors final game before the all-star break, Casey was asked about how DeRozan is still able to look as fresh as he is on a nightly basis while many of his teammates show signs of fatigue.

“We’ve probably with him, more so than Kyle, have done a better job of managing his minutes,” Casey said. “I’m sure he doesn’t like it. You can see him look up at the clock at two-something or three-something left in the quarter but we do that for a reason. We try to manage him as much as we can to get him back in because it’s a long season. It’s the same with Kyle and he’s playing at such a high level, we’ve got to get him some rest.”

Left unsaid but certainly inferred was Casey’s belief that he and his coaching staff have been able to do a better job getting DeRozan a rest when he needed it most.

With Lowry, because he is so key to what the Raptors do on a nightly basis, taking him out hasn’t been as easy.

Quite often DeRozan will come out and Greivis Vasquez will come in, joining Lowry on the floor.

It allows DeRozan the break he requires and to some extent offers Lowry a bit of a respite as Vasquez brings the ball up the court taking some of the responsibility and stress off of Lowry.

But Casey knows he’s riding Lowry hard. The only substantial rest he’ll get from now until the end of the season may be this all-star break assuming he stays healthy.

For his part Lowry appears to have taken the whole all-star snub thing in stride. He has plans to be on a beach somewhere and maybe that’s for the best.

Asked point blank if Lowry needed the rest more than DeRozan, Casey agreed.

“A little bit more than DeMar and hopefully he gets it over this break,” Casey said.

The heavy lifting may have been done already as the Raptors schedule lets up a little in the second half, but Casey knows the home stretch is going to be a grind. The Brooklyn Nets are showing no signs of going away and holding them off may be the difference between home court in the first round or starting on the road.

In a perfect world, both DeRozan and Lowry would be getting the all-star experience they have earned. But in terms of bettering Toronto’s chances through the second half, this couldn’t have worked out much better.

He was courtside for their game in Los Angeles at the Staples Center last Saturday, a less-than-stellar 118-105 loss to the Clippers and then did a little Raptors name dropping in an coming interview for the Feb 27th issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

The bulk of the interview, which was going to be the magazine cover before Philip Seymour Hoffman’s passing, is non-Raptors related, focusing on Drake’s hip-hop career, but towards the end talking about how pumped up he is to get out and perform, he references one of the many highlights of the Raptors season thus far.

“The other night, one of my good friends, Terrence Ross, scored, like, 51 points at one point,” Drake told Rolling Stone. “People were going crazy, rejoicing: ‘This guy is up next!’ I was that guy at one point — refreshing and new and people wanted me to win. But it’s like, there are guys that do that every night and people get tired of them doing it. I feel like people are tired of me doing 40, 50 points. I gotta go put up 100 in one night for people to say, ‘Damn!’”

We’re not sure about guys dropping 51 every night in the NBA, but we do understand Drake, like Ross, setting a pretty high bar for himself early in his career.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.